There are Seven
by Whas'up
Summary: An Outlaw Queen story set mostly in the missing year. When Robin witnesses Regina felled in a battle that shouldn't have happened at all, when he sees her bleed, he goes mad with rage, the likes of which he's never felt before.
1. Chapter 1

First there was wrath.

* * *

The green witch is not the only enemy hidden in these lands, she is the most flamboyant by far, but not the most dangerous,

These lands, even, are an enemy, Robin feels it heavy in the wind sometimes, more and more every day. The air blowing through the trees is menacing in a way he cannot explain, it shivers his spine the way the wind shrieks, he sends wary looks over his shoulder when between the giants of the forest. The castle is more a safe haven for Robin and his men then the newly returned inhabitants know.

This land, it is not the rolling hills and protected roads it was before the curse struck. Robin feels more and more the stranger in the woods that were his home for so long. Roland does not feel safe in the woods, as Robin had when he was young, Roland does not like to be alone with the trees.

The child has more sense than David, Robin thinks, David who does not know the forest for what it is now, and David does not know these men as he supposes he does either.

These men, standing in a loose semi-circle before Robin, John, David, and the Queen, these men, enemies each and every one, wild men for a wild forest, menacing men that call the cruel woods home, David does not know how dangerous they are.

"We can compromise," David entreats, smiling, with his hand raised, palm towards the sky, a friendly gesture. "Surely, we can come to-"

The dark haired man that stands before David lets out a breath of air, the wild man, seems to be the leader, pale eyes and dark hair, mocking, turning his head to look at his closest compatriots. His fingers clench around the hilt of his blade, a grip that creaks his knuckles. He has crooked teeth, yellowing and uncared for, when he smiles, his smile is on the Queen, lecherous and gross, his tongue licks at dry lips.

"What would you offer us?" the man says, "Would you give us the woman, if we asked? Is that a compromise we can all agree too?"

Another man laughs, humps violently at empty air, hands raised as if to grip a phantom woman about the hips. The wild men laugh.

Robin's hands turns to fists, he feels his pulse beating wildly in his neck with every forceful beat of his heart, thundering in his ears, louder and louder the longer he watches the man carry on. Robin breaths in, harsh through his nose, and takes his glare off the man to look at Regina, to look at her as she stares dispassionately into pale eyes and yellow teeth, but her jaw is clenched tightly.

David's smile dims, and then it is gone, but he steadfastly refuses to share any sort of glance with the woman standing by his side, the Queen, she stands still seemingly unruffled as the humping man adds grunts to his act, disgusting things. A battle, a skirmish, she'd foretold it, there is no compromise with men like these, she'd said to David and to Snow when these wild men had wormed out of the darkness of the forest, and the both of them had not listened to her.

Robin eases his weight from one foot to the other, ready for the fight; John next to him does the same.

"Surely-" David starts, but then the men attack.

* * *

 _"There is no compromise with men like these!" she had said, nearly yelling, bright eyes nearly pleading as she leaned over the heavy wooden table, hands flat upon its carved surface. Her dress was silk, Robin followed the folds of it with his eyes as he listened to her rich voice, dark purple silk draped over every lovely curve, over soft swells, an artist, a sculpture of the highest caliber, must have helped in her creation, he thought, for she was a work of art, the most beautiful Robin had ever seen. "They are dangerous to us," the Queen went on, and she was right, "we are nowhere near full strength, if they -"_

 _Snow White tsked her tongue, smiling, and Robin could see how that smile enraged Regina, could see how it burned away the pleading and left only the anger in her dark eyes. "Regina," Snow said, eyebrows drawing together, she reached out a hand, as if to touch her once step-mother, only to have Regina flinch back from that almost contact as if burned. "Winter is just around the bend," Snow went on after a moment too long saying nothing, her hand hanging in the air before returning to rest over her ever growing middle, "these men are desperate, they have no stores and no shelter, we can work this out with them. Please don't worry."_

 _It was Robin that could not contain himself then, the absurdity of Snow and David's naivety too much to take, and nor could he look another moment upon the frustrated frown overtaking Regina's face without trying to alleviate some of her worries, "These are not good men," he said to Snow._

 _His quiet voice stilled the room._

 _Robin had never had trouble getting other men, royals and peasant alike, to listen to him, to hear him, his voice had those in the council chambers looking towards him then. Regina gazed at him for a moment, just a moment, eyes sharp and dark and penetrating, locked on his, before she licked her lips, full lips, before she turned away, walking slowly, the patter of her shoes shuffling against the stone. "These are not desperate men that kill to survive, Your Majesty," Robin said to Snow, half his attention on the sultry line of the Queen's spine as she came to a stop before a window, gazing through the glass, her back to him, to the council, half her back was bare, smooth skin free to Robin's scrutiny. She shivered as she stood so close to the window._

 _(How he wished to chase the chill away, wrap arms around her and warm her, the urge to touch was getting stronger every day, the urge to touch her, to feel the softness of her body, the softness she did not hide, no, the softness she showcased in her velvet gowns, in her silk dresses, the softness she used against Robin like a weapon, and it was indeed a most devastating one.)_

 _It was David that bid him to continue, "What do you mean?" the King, was he truly King, Robin did not know, did not ask, the Queen was still Regina, and David could not be King if Snow was not Queen._

 _Robin leaned forward, let his eyes leave the woman he so often was caught gazing at, clasped his hands together to keep the urge to touch her at bay, "These are men that kill because they can, because they are strong and others are weak, they do not need your shelter, I assure you, nor your stores. The Queen speaks truly; there is no compromise with men the likes of these."_

 _But Snow shook her head with a smile._

* * *

There is no compromise with these men.

Fifteen men, men that stink of body odor, men with old dried blood on their blades, blades uncared for, chipped and twisted like their teeth, with greasy hair, wild and flying, they attack all at once, one entity together, and even as Robin jumps back, draws his bow up, he is impressed with their unity, with their speed, as they rush forward.

Robin lets loose an arrow, does not pause to see it impale itself in the neck of the man it was aimed for, already he is drawing another, aiming for another man. John has felled two already with his own bow; David is fighting three with his blade, and Regina-

Robin nearly loses the air in his lungs, watching her from the side of his eye as he kills another man, efficiently diminishing the enemies number, for all her softness she is still frightening to behold-

Regina dances, her hair behind her, streaming and dark, her legs, encased in leather, they are quick, her feet nimble on rocks and grass. Fire at her fingertips, fire, hot and deadly, it casts her face in lights and shadow, she spins away from sharp steel, she parries, one man screams and screams from a burn on his face before he is shoved back by an unnatural force, it rips him back and smashes him against a tree. She is fighting five, four now that the man with the burned face does not rise from where he sprawled upon the ground.

Robin tears his focus from her.

Robin shoots a third arrow, flies it into the gut of a man that is charging Robin, Robin springs back another step, notches another arrow and this goes into the charging man's thigh, that makes him stumble, fall to a knee in the dirt, it is the man that had groaned and grunted and pretended to fuck the Queen. The next arrow goes through his left eye.

The next man to come at Robin is laughing, unhinged in the most dangerous of ways, mad men are animals, and a slither of fear crawls up the back of Robin's neck where before there had been none, the arrow he shoots is thwacked out of its path by the unhinged man's sword. Robin stands for a moment too long in shock, too long questioning how the madman did it, his moment too long nearly costs him his life. He flings himself to the side with a grunt, escaping a swinging blow by a mere hair's breadth.

"Run little rabbit," the man cackles, he does not blink, his eyes wide and bloodshot as he goes for a thrust, a clean through and through, steps in close to Robin. Robin cannot escape him long enough to draw back his bowstring as he is forced to evade and jump.

Robin drops his bow, careful even in this extreme to be careful of his favored weapon, instead Robin pulls his dagger free of his waist, his teeth snarling as he meets the madman, but a dagger is no match for a sword, and Robin cries out as his shoulder is sliced open, his leathers and his tunic cut as easily as his skin underneath.

He falls to his knee in the dirt, switches his dagger from his right hand, which is already numbing and heavy, to his left. Robin pants out a breath, and stands to fight. He gets his feet in time to see the madman's head suddenly turn with a sickening sound, frighteningly fast, turn completely around to face the wrong way, his neck snaps, the sound is unlike any other gruesome thing Robin has heard in his life. The man drops to the ground, dead, heavy weight, his sword clattering free from his slackened grip.

Robin lunges for the dropped sword, breathing heavily, bleeding from his wound; he looks into the blank eyes of the madman as he takes the sword, and can think of nothing besides how grateful he is to be alive. The Queen had saved him, Robin knows, and rises with his newly acquired sword intent on finding her in the increasingly desperate fight.

Only six remain of the enemy.

He is searching for her, for only half a second, before he hears her first, the noise she makes when she is struck, a sort of strangled gasp, wet sounding and surprised, high pitched, he hears it over the shouting of David, over the clatter of booted feet, over the shinking of blades still ringing in the air.

"I got the witch!" the leader of the wild men thunders, and his voice drowns out the other noises, he yells as Robin finds her, finds her so easily, she is always so easy for him to find, as if his eyes were made for looking at her.

He is already running, running to her. David too has abandoned whoever he'd been fighting, though Robin does not have eyes for David, his sole focus entirely on Regina, on the way she looks up and their eyes meet, so far away, her dark eyes on him, sharp eyes, her mouth parted softly.

Regina is clutching at her middle with both hands, bloodied hands, fresh blood, red, so much red from so little a time, red, so terribly red on her hands that look suddenly pale, she stumbles forward, and the man that had yelled laughs, he laughs, takes a step and smacks her across her beautiful face, dares put his dirty hands upon her. She falls, topples sideways, striking the ground solidly, and staying there, a smaller sound of pain, akin to a whimper, forms on her mouth, Robin imagines he can hear it, the desperate little whoosh of sound that escapes her.

His scream is wordless, he was never particularly good with a sword, nor as trained as he could have been, but he imagines now taking the man's life with the blade in his hand, staining the blade further. Robin's rage, already an inferno, only grows as the man stomps his booted foot down on the Queen's ribs, another stomp, and another, each impact drives another scream from her. And still the man laughs.

Before the man can drive down his heel again though, his leg catches fire, from toes to knee, white hot flame that boils the skin, and must blacken bone, Robin can hear it bubbling and crisping, the man screams and screams, shrill and undulating, batting at his leg. Regina is left alone, left alone to bleed and curl up on the ground, she had the strength to set him aflame, but not the strength to rise, and then Robin is before him, blow after furious blow delivered, over and over, but even still aflame the man is a better swordsmen then Robin, he drives Robin back, snarling and still on fire, saying things Robin cannot hear, cannot understand, he can barely see for the rage.

Robin needs to kill him, never before in his life has he felt this need, dire and urgent, he needs this man's life, it is simple in his thoughts.

Robin is screaming too, but what he is saying he doesn't register at all, he feels spit flying from his mouth with every unintelligible word, escapes with his wordless screams, his rage has him blinded to danger, heedless of injury, over and over in his eyes is that booted foot stomping on Regina, each sound in his ears is the sound of her pain, and the man still aflame steps back now, his burning leg will not hold his weight.

Blurred. Robin's sight.

Buried. Robin is buried under rage, suffocating with the scent of burning flesh trapped in his nose.

Fast and swamping, the need to kill, overpowers him, a river overflowing its banks.

That sound of pain from her lips is all he can hear in his ears, over and over.

Robin is buried under rage.

Blood red rage. Her bloodied hands on a loop in his mind.

Rage the likes he's never known.

A blur, he forgets where he is, knows only the sword, the weapon in his hands, his right hand clumsy and heavy, from far away he can feel the wound on his shoulder, but he does not feel the ache in his arms, nor does the newest injury adorning his thigh make any decipherable feeling, Robin feels nothing but rage.

"ROBIN!"

His name, his name, repeating,

"ROBIN!"

Robin jerks, breath heavy out of aching lungs, David's hand gripping Robin's uninjured shoulder, trying to pull him back. It is David calling Robin's name-

Robin cannot stop the hacking motion of his arms, the motion he'd started before he'd come back to himself, and the sword, stained red, falls down into the pulpy mess that Robin does not recognize as anything remotely human until another second has passed, the pulpy mass, it is what the wild man has become.

Robin stumbles back and falls on his ass, David releases his shoulder at the same moment Robin releases the sword, wide eyed and panting Robin looks at the spilled organs before him and shakes his head, horror growing on his features as he looks what he has done. He has killed men before, but this looks- Robin shakes his head, fighting a throbbing pain forming behind his eyes, this looks- it is a mess.

None of the enemy remains alive.

Wind shrieks through the trees encasing the clearing where an accord was meant to be reached, cold and twisting branches shiver against the growing dark, Robin feels the weight of the tree's regard heavily, the darkness oppressive all around as the sun is a fading strip of orange and purple far off in the distance.

"The Queen," Robin begs, turning to David, he gasps it out, desperately, her hands coated in blood still in his mind; he clambers to his feet with David's help, "Regina," he says, and sees her still curled upon the ground where she fell, her back to him.

John has a head wound that he's holding the tattered remains of his cloak to, the homespun cloth already soaked through in blood. He seems a bit dazed as he watches the sun dip lower and lower, "We're losing the light," he tells them.

Robin hears him, but he's stumbling to the Queen, panting and afraid.

Robin lands hard on his knees on the blood soaked dirt beside her, the back of her coat, the opulent navy blue of it, is staining darker and darker, an exit wound out her back that has Robin near hyperventilating in panic, such an injury bleeds out quickly. David reaches forward once he's crouched down on the balls of his feet next to her curled form, he turns her from her side onto her bleeding back, an abrupt action that is unwise and unnecessary, she screams like she'd been stabbed all over again, one high pitched cry that she ceases almost as soon as it began, and as her scream rips through the cold air David is pushed back by an invisible hand, falling on his ass, skidding until he's more than five strides away, unharmed but puffing out a shout of protest.

"We're losing the light," John says again, stumbling towards the rest of the group.

(futilely trying to escape the darkness and what hides its face there, the sun has set, dark purple far in the west, and even that is quickly fading. There is no moon in the sky. Clouds cover the stars. He trips over the leg of a corpse, a still warm corpse, he falls to the ground, face to face with blank eyes, unseeing and pale and accusatory, John feels another set, so similar but so vastly and horribly different staring at him from the darkness, he shakes his head as he attempts once, twice, a third and final, successful, time to rise once more.)

"Milady," Robin questions when he looks to her, voice quiet, Robin pets bloodied and dirtied hair off her forehead, a gesture that is far too intimate for her it would seem, she turns her face away with an almost snarl contorting her mouth, but Robin is not rebuffed as David had been.

Robin ignores the affronted look on David's face as David stands and swipes dirt off himself, but David at least does not look angry at being thrown, and seems to realize how much he's made her suffer by his rashness and his ignorance as her abdomen jumps up and down with each fraught breath, as she tries to stifle sobs that are already well underway. She does herself more damage with the way she fights for control.

"The spirits linger," John says loudly, he swipes blood away from his eyes before grasping at David's sleeve, "we must be away from this place," John hisses.

David shakes his head, still not listening, "Sit, Jesus, John you're bleeding like a stuck pig," he helps John sit. David is looking down at Regina, he breathes a heavy breath, a wince decorating his features before he smooths the expression down into a frown.

"Regina," David asks, bending over her and Robin, "hey, talk to me," he says unhelpfully.

Regina's bloodied hands grope just under her ribs, where blood pools, pale hands clumsy, Robin has to help them on their way. Robin holds one of his hands over her own, her blood is warm, and so awful, awful red, "milady," Robin begs, free hand cupping her face, fingers sliding into dark hair to point her gaze at him when her neck goes limp. She starts to shake, tremors running through every inch of her, small things, but she shakes and shakes.

"he-" she says, strangled and broken, opening her eyes to look at Robin, dark eyes welling with tears, they leak out the corner of her eyes, trail a clean swath through the grit on her temple, her tears slide into her dark hair, but through her pain she is obviously angry,"-poins-d," her words jump, nearly unintelligible, "poisoned," she repeats, "his blade."

Robin bends closer to her, a huff of breath leaving him, blowing hot hair straight from his lungs into her face, "no," he says, "no," he begs, he refuses to think of how alarmingly pale she has gotten, refuses to think of the blood that is no doubt draining out her back, and poison she says, the word spat out with disdain. "Regina!" he shakes her softly when her eyes close, it takes a second too long for them to open, but they do with a glare, a glare not nearly as cutting as it should be.

"hea-l," she murmurs, "I'll," and the rest of her words are impossible for Robin to decipher.

Robin latches onto that word, heal, heal she'd said, he begs her to do it if she can, voice too loud in the night, the cold night, the darkness grows and grows but Robin can see nothing past her. Desperately he pulls her closer, hand going to the back of her neck, fingers weaved through dark tresses that slip loose from her plait. He curves her torso up, shimmying his legs under her, until she lies in his lap. She's beyond pain now, or maybe she isn't, but at the move no new sound of agony comes from her, but her body still shakes and shakes.

She'll heal it with her magic.

Does Robin imagine the way she sinks against him with a sigh?

And then she stops.

She just…stops.

"NOOO!" Robin screams, panic in him deep, imbedded in his skin like the claws of grindylow around his ankle, his panic is a vile creature trying to drown him. He shakes her, when did her eyes close, they are closed, and they do not open to glare at him, "no," he repeats, and shakes her again, shaking her too hard, David must think so, David is dragging Robin's hands off of her. Robin wrenches himself from David's restraining hands, and Regina, without Robin's arms holding her to him, she falls limply to the side, sliding off his lap and into the dirt.

"Stop!" David orders, "Robin, stop!"

"No, she," Robin has a hand clutching David's collar-

"She's breathing!" David shouts over him, and it is he who is shaking Robin now, shaking him by twin grips on each shoulder, "Stop, let me see! ROBIN! Stop!"

John sits beside the scuffle, frightened eyes at the trees, at the darkness between the trunks. (eyes, cruel and pale, peering at them between the branches, he can see them) "Do you see him?! They linger," he whispers gruffly, once more clinging to David's sleeve, but David shakes him off, reaches for Regina, checks her pulse, one of his hands still on Robin's shoulder.

"She's alive," David says, he straightens her on the dirt, letting Robin free of his grip, Robin sways dumbly, and in the back of his thoughts he realizes she is not the only one losing too much blood too quickly, the wound on his thigh has drenched blood down his whole trouser leg. David places her on her back again; he's tugging at her coat, unbuttoning it, revealing smooth flesh stained in tacking red, Robin growls from deep in his throat, a noise he did not decide to make, yet it escapes him just the same at the sight of David undressing the Queen.

David's hands still, he lets out a breath, looks from Robin back to the half undone coat, "I think she healed it, we have to see," he says, waiting for Robin to acquiesce, though it's not his place, she is her own woman, a free woman, but David waits for Robin to give him his agreement, and once Robin does so, a stiff nod of his head, David tips his chin towards a corpse not far from arm's length, "Grab the canteen," he asks of Robin.

Robin does so, nearly falling on his face when the arm he uses to brace his leaning grab is not actually strong enough to hold him up. It's as he's handing the canteen to David, the water, what is hopefully water, sloshing in the thing, that Robin feels the terrible burning agony slicing up and down his leg, upwards towards his hip, it is the wound on his thigh. Poisoned, Robin remembers her saying, poisoned blade. Robin fumbles at his trouser leg, finding the sliced material and gripping it tightly, one of his hands is heavy, will not listen to him well, but it grasps well enough, he rips the material in one powerful tug. The wound on his leg is unnatural green and black, the poison she spoke of already in his veins, the black travels in spider webs of death under his sweating skin.

Robin curses softly, heavy brows drawing together, he swallows and looks away from his leg, back to her, always to her. David has poured some water on her bare belly, washed away the blood ineffectually, no open wound greets the air, she had healed the hole in her gut, but the same black spider webs are there on her smooth skin, beautiful skin, sweating skin, her breasts, restrained in some strange and lacey bit of undergarment, they heave with each breath, breath that becomes more labored after each wheezed exhale.

"Her back," Robin says, his voice strange, far away as if through cotton, "check her back," he bids David, and David does so grimly, turning her onto her side, her beautiful face, her lips parted, her hair spilling over her eyes, turned to face Robin.

David pours from the canteen after he maneuvers her coat off one of her arms, leaving her half naked in the cold air, half naked in front of Robin, but Robin shakes his head and only looks to her face, gaze never sweeping past her collarbone. David frowns even more deeply, "She's still bleeding," he says so quietly, licking his lips before he eases her back down, eases her arm back through her sleeve and buttons her with care. David stands, the motion fast and hurried after the gentleness of redressing her, fright in his eyes now, is he afraid for her life?

"Can you two walk?" he looks from Robin to John, frowning even more deeply at what he must see.

But Robin heaves himself up, his wounded leg nearly gives out under him, but he strengthens, he stands as straight as he can, "Of course," he answers.

"In the trees," John is saying, trying to stand, doing a poor job of it too, that head wound oozing thick blood, "god help us, they're in the trees,"

Robin reaches for John, helps him up as best he can, "We can walk," Robin says. He regards David with a grim straight line for a mouth, "You can carry her? Are you injured?"

David shakes his head, "I'm not hurt," he reaches down, arranges her body, working an arm under her knees, around her back, he stands with a grunt, she looks awkward in grasp, until he shuffles her a bit, gets her more comfortable against him, and then he nods, "We have to hurry."


	2. Chapter 2

"He isn't losing the leg."

Robin hears her voice, but he can't move, can't even open his eyes. His thoughts are swirling, a miasma of confusion, his body feels heavy, laden and impossible to move.

"Regina, please, you need to sto-"

"Don't touch me!" she screams. Robin nearly opens his eyes then, his eyelids flicker, a breath leaves him with the hint of a groan on his lips.

Whatever Robin is laying on jostles, something touches him, touches his chest, a hand, _her_ hand, how does he know it is _her_ hand, when he has no sight to guide him, when her hand is alike to any other woman's? But it is her hand, he knows it, and with her touch some bright spark comes to him, strength flowing from her to him, she grips the shirt across his chest, he feels the fabric tugging at his shoulders as she pulls and yells, "Don't touch him! He isn't losing the leg!"

"Regina," Snow's voice, pleading, sounding close to tears, and it is then, with the bright light spark of strength that had come from her touch, that Robin manages to open his eyes, but above him is only a blur, as if a milky film covers his eyes.

David's voice is near, quietly and seriously he speaks, he sounds as near as Snow had, "Regina," he says, scolding, his tone irks Robin, he can't imagine what it does to the Queen, to be talked to as if a child, "you are not strong enough to do-"

"Get out!" she seethes.

Whether they heed her or no, Robin can't say.

His mouth opens in a gasp, his air leaving him in a huge gush, from her hand on his chest a heat weaves its way through him, around him, inside him, warm, different from the bright light spark, this is embers, it is comfort before a hearth, comforting heat like he's submerged himself in a hot spring, his eyes can focus, a little, above him is a deep blue canopy, this is not his bed, he could tell that for himself by how soft it is, how he sinks against the sheets. He turns his head to the right, shuddering in another breath, and he sees her.

The Queen looks awful. Concern for her, even more then the sizable concern he feels for himself, invade his thoughts. Her eyes are only half open, dark half circles mar her skin, they are a deep sickly bruised purple discoloring under her eyes, eyes that look dull. Sweat gathers at her forehead, her skin looks blotchy and sickly and dull. Her hair hangs limply. Her mouth parted with panting breaths.

"-nna-" Robin sputters out.

 _Still bleeding_ , David had said, god it feels so long ago, how did Robin get here on this bed? They were walking through the dark, David with her in his arms, and John seeing ghosts in the wood all around, how did Robin get here, he cannot remember, it is a blank.

"-ilady," Robin grunts out, garbled and grunted, did it even sound like a word, moving his hand, and what a colossal effort it requires, he moves his hand from his side, moves the heavy limb, the unwilling limb, from his side to cover her hand on his chest. Still bleeding, David had said when he turned her to look at her back, and that black spider web of poison under her skin, Robin can remember it in vivid detail, the lurid black, the sickly green, she is unwell.

The comforting warmth seeping from her hand becomes burning agony right about then, the pain focused on his leg, on the poisoned wound he suffered.

Robin screams, his eyes scrunching shut, his hand squeezing hers.

"Shhhh," she soothes, her voice from beside him, he thinks he feels her lips against his forehead, "shhh," she whispers against his skin.

Another shout is drawn out of him though, his thoughts sinking into delirium, his world one of pain, flashes winking through his mind, images of the last days, images, flashing through his mind, the men, dirty and gross, Regina, _still bleeding, still bleeding_ , a man with an arrow through his eye, David with her in his arms, the dark blue canopy, Snow White waving them good-bye before disaster had struck, the Princess standing on the stairs, a white gown, dark hair, the Queen's dark hair, hanging limply. Another shout sobs out of him, tears track down his cheeks, hot, hot tears, _still bleeding, still bleeding_ -

"Sleep," her voice, whispering right in his ear, her breath against his face. "Please, Robin."

 _Still bleeding, still bleeding, still bleeding_ , David carrying her in his ar-

* * *

"Papa?"

Robin groans, feels a savage little poke against his side, he only groans louder.

"Uncle John, why isn't Papa getting up?"

"He's still hurt, lad," John says, he's chuckling at Robin's groan of displeasure, has he always been such an awful friend Robin wonders, "ease him into it a bit," John suggests.

"Oh," the bed dips, Roland's climbing up, Robin can see that when his eyes open, his eyes are dry, his throat too, everything is dry and everything aches as well, his whole body just aching and heavy.

The little boy sits beside him on the plush blankets, little hands cupping Robin's cheeks, Roland's face hovering over his own, the little dark haired child, dark eyes, and dimples deep in his cheeks when he smiles, "Hi, Papa," Roland whispers.

Robin can't get his arms to rise, because of weariness that dogs him and makes his eyes droop, can't hug the boy, but he smiles in return, will always smile for Roland, "Hello, my boy," Robin rasps out, coughing once the sentence is done, lurching away from Roland's hands so he does not cough straight in the lad's face.

"Easy there," John's hands help right Robin, he helps Robin sit up against the impossibly soft pillows, offers him a glass of water to drink from, holds it steady as Robin drinks.

"Thank you, John," Robin says, his thirst quenched, his throat wetted, "now tell me true, how do you fare?" he asks after John first, because John is the one sitting before him, but his thoughts are already racing towards the Queen, he sees for himself that John looks well, color in his cheeks, but she is nowhere to be found and he remembers her voice in his ear, her breath on his face.

John throws him an easy smile, a hand coasting through his long hair, "Far better then you are."

Robin grimaces as Roland bounces on the bed, "They wouldn't let me see you, Papa," Roland says, pouting.

"How long have I-"

John licks his lips, "Nearing a week now," he admits.

"A week?!" Robin echoes, his lost time is just that, lost. "And you would not permit Roland in to see me?" he asks this with some accusation, some bitterness, finding the strength to wrap one arm around Roland and hug him against his side.

"I would not keep the boy from you if it were not necessary, friend," John says, frowning, haunted looking, "you weren't well, Robin. It wouldn't have done the lad any good to see you in such a way."

A moment passes by, and another, "I understand," Robin says, quietly, nuzzling his chin against Roland's curls. He has no memory, had he even been awake at all? His knuckles are bruised, he notices, and John sees him notices and looks at him strangely, when did that happen?

"How's your leg?" Roland questions, poking at the blanket covered limb.

Robin nearly screams in pain, muffles it instead into a sharp grunt that sends Roland spilling into apologies. Robin soothes the child, assures him it is alright, as long he does not do it again.

"I'm alright," Robin promises Roland, though he does not actually know, he remembers her voice, saying twice that he would not lose his leg, and indeed it is still there, aching and burning. He will wait to look at it. When the boy is somewhere happy and safe, Robin will lift the blanket and see for himself what kind of mangled limb he still has to call his own. Will it hold weight? Will he be a cripple? These aren't questions a little boy should hear.

"And the Queen? How is she?" Robin asks of John as the bearded man helps Roland off the bed, sending him off to the bookshelf in the corner of the room to explore.

The hesitance is enough to have Robin near hysterics, "How is she?" he repeats.

"She's not well," John tells him, tugging at his beard, a nervous habit he has.

"What does that mean, John?"

John looks away, looks over his shoulder at the boy and the expensive huge books covered in dust, "She," the man shrugs, "she hallucinates, cries out, that poison has done something to her mind. They tried to cut it out, drain it from her blood, but the black spreads further and further."

"This last week," he licks his lips, "was I in such a state?"

John tilts his head, a sort of nod, "Only a bit, you were easy to calm, and she promised you would mend."

Robin is mute in horror, in shock, how can she be in such a state, when he feels nothing but ache? "She healed me?" Robin questions, remembering her hand on him, the bright spark that gave him strength, the burning agony on his thigh, her voice in his ear.

"Aye, she did that," John nods, a grimace decorates his face.

"What?" Robin hisses, "What is it, I bid you tell me."

"Healing you made her tenfold worse, she fell into her delirium as you were leaving yours."

Robin thumps back against his pillows, shaking his head, "No, no, that can't be so, John, please-"

"I'm sorry to upset you so," John tells him.

Is he not sorry that her life hangs in peril?

Robin swallows, his throat dry once more, "Is she dying?"

"Who can say the gods wil-"

"Gods be damned! Tell me, John!"

John is silent, staring at him, tugging again on his beard, "I gleaned what I could, the royal pair are quiet, I cannot say for certain how much life she has left in her, Robin. They keep the old wolf by the Queen's door, she won't let anyone pass, but you can hear the Queen screaming."

"Where is she?"

"Robin, you aren't well," John stands as Robin flings the blanket, Robin's leg cleared, covered in trousers that are soft, trousers that aren't his, just as the shirt he wears is not his, nor this room is the one he'd decided on. He'd hoped it was, well, he'd hoped it to be the Queen's bed, when he awoke in all that softness, a notion he will never admit to out loud, but there all the same.

When Robin tries to stand his legs will not hold his weight, and fresh agony sears up his hip from the wound on his thigh, the wound, and he still has not looked at it, it thrums in deep ache, he falls back on his ass to the bed, John's hands on him to slow his fall.

Robin growls, from deep in his chest, Roland is already sprinting to him.

"Papa! Are you alright?"

Robin blinks, takes control of himself with difficulty, glaring at John as if this is all his fault, though he knows that is not the way of it, but he is the only place to glare.

"I'm fine, I'm sorry for scaring you, my boy," Robin says as Roland climbs up again on the bed next to him, little face crumpled in worry.

"Are you talking about the Majesty?"

"The Queen, yes, Roland," Robin hugs Roland against his side, licking his lips and working back the furious tears John's words had inspired, the images of her thrashing and sweating, hallucinating and crying out, the notion that she had somehow switched their fates, taken poison, taken sickness, from him only to give it to herself, it has Robin so furious, furious that he is useless.

"Where is she?" he repeats.

John looks at him, looks down at him and shuffles his feet, "She's a floor up."

"This room is in her tower?" Robin looks around once more, notices the richness of the fabrics, the opulence of those dusty old books, even the chair John had sat upon is upholstered with fine velvet, its wood a polished dark cherry.

"Aye, I've heard tell it was her father's room."

Robin doesn't know how to take this information, "Did she place me here?"

"She did, before..." John shrugs.

Robin will process this later, he decides. When he tries to stand once more, his legs wobble, that ache in his thigh transforms into stabbing pain, but he stays upright. John is frowning at him.

"I must see her," Robin tells him.

"Me too!" Roland chirps from Robin's side.

Robin looks down at his boy with saddened eyes, "Roland, she's still very sick." Robin gently reaches for Roland's hand, the little fingers reaching in return.

Roland's bottom lip is trembling, a tantrum is on the horizon, "I want to go with you! They wouldn't let me see you, Papa! Even though I was extra good! They wouldn't let me see you and they wouldn-"

"Roland," Robin says, voice not loud, but sharp, Roland's words stop immediately.

Fat tears fall out of the boy's eyes, rolling down his chubby cheek, "I was extra good," the boy sobs out, scrubbing at his face to rid them of his tears.

"Come now, lad," John barks out, "only babies cry."

Robin's ire is swift and hot, the glare he gives John is immediate. "That isn't true," Robin falls back on the bed, grabs at Roland, lifts him with a grunt to sit next to him, "you cry if you need to cry, Roland."

John looks apologetic; this is not the first time he has said something to Roland that Robin absolutely and completely disagreed with. But he also looks at Roland crumpling into Robin's side with a nearly imperceptible sigh.

Roland needs him now. Needs reassurance and comfort, needs his father, Robin spends the rest of the afternoon with his boy. Worrying about the Queen the entire time.

* * *

"Good evening, Granny," Robin pants as he sways before her chair, he looks on at her unimpressed stare and tries to smile, it looks more a grimace, he is sure, especially with the firelight that must be flickering over his face from the torch above Granny's head, it throws her in horrible shadows, but the old woman softens, a bit, a fraction, her hold on her crossbow never loosens.

"You best just hobble on along, Robin," Granny tells him.

From behind her a thump, a wail, heart wrenching, Robin's eyes shoot over Granny's shoulder, dig into the wooden door, he takes an unsteady step.

She raises the crossbow.

Robin harrumphs out an angry breath, stills his steps, "I am no danger to her," he states, glaring at the crossbow and the bolt ready to spring. "And in any case I will not let you stop me from opening this door."

"Do you know why I'm sitting here? Do you understand the need?" Granny says, glaring right back from behind her glasses, "I've clipped two dumb asses already that thought they could end her while she was weak."

Another wail.

"And do you think me a danger to her?" he asks, daring her to say yes with rageful eyes, but she shakes her head, "Is she alone in there? Alone to deal with this torment?" Robin will not back down, he will see her, this old woman will not stop him, even though he is grateful for her presence, for the protection she offers the woman on the other side of the door.

"Aye, she's alone," Granny nods, "she threw Snow out, screaming 'stupid girl' over and over."

"I'm told she's hallucinating," Robin says.

Granny gives him a long stare, "aye," she agrees. She changes conversation, quick, leaving him dumbfounded and offset as she asks him, "I heard you fell into a blood rage when she was struck down."

Is there really a name for the force that overtook him? The red rage that colored his world and narrowed his vision? That had him hacking and hacking at a man till he was not but a pile of red meaty mush? "I've not heard the term before," Robin mumbles, he's going to fall soon, his legs will not hold him for much longer, they are trembling.

"I fell into one once," Granny shares with him, her crossbow steady, "when Red was only a little girl, a man tried to take her from me, a Knight of King George, tried to say he had the right to any woman he chose." Granny's lips purse in disgust, she shakes her head, "She was eight summers, and he called her a woman."

"The man," Robin says, forcing himself to look her in the eye, as she did him, "he wounded her with his blade. He started kicking her after she fell, at her ribs and her belly, laughing all the while, and I," Robin shakes his head, trying to loosen memories that are vague, "I, everything was red, I had to kill him, I had to-"

"Why?" Granny growls.

Robin shakes his head again, legs trembling and trembling, "He dared touch her," his eyes narrow, his nose scrunches up, heartbeat thudding, thinking about it makes him furious, "he dared put his dirty hand on her and wound her, she lay hurt and he beat her."

Granny sniffs, mulls him over, and finally lowers her crossbow, "She's not a pretty sight, Robin. She's dying."

"No," Robin denies, pleads, "do not tell me this."

"Snow got every Healer and Doctor she could get her hands on, and they all say the same."

"Magic can do nothing? She healed me, certainly there is magic that can heal her?"

Granny shrugs one shoulder, "The fairies claim it's beyond their knowledge."

"Claim? You suspect falsehood?"

"I do," Granny admitted without squeamishness, "Snow has heard my belief but refuses to accept that the Blue Fairy would do such a thing. She's a naïve girl."

Robin knows that for himself, Snow White and her husband both, naïve.

The sound of breaking glass is heard from behind the door, and this time when Robin takes a shambling step forward Granny does nothing but watch his progress.

"Be careful, Robin, a wounded animal doesn't know a kind hand," Granny tells him, resting a hand against his forearm as he reaches for the knob.

"She's no animal," Robin answers her.

Granny, her face looking like a deeply carved mask, the flickering light glinting against the glass over her eyes, she shakes her head and releases him, "We're all animals," she tells him.

He has no response for that.

Robin enters and swiftly closes the door, leaning his back against it, legs still trembling, the room is dark, cavernous and dark, only the moonlight from the huge balcony doors, flung open with their curtains fluttering in the night breeze, give any illumination. "Milady!" Robin calls softly, his feet are covered in soft slippers, perhaps once her father's slippers, found under the bed of his sickroom, his feet crunch over broken glass as he steps forward.

"Get out!" her voice from across the room, he cannot see her.

Brittle. Tremulous. _Afraid_. Her voice is all these things, Robin takes another step forward. "Milady, please," he says, too quietly for her to hear, he thinks, but his voice has become a small thing, fear is tightening his throat, fear for her.

"Go away, leave me alone," he follows her voice, he thinks he sees her form crouched on the floor, on the side of the bed dripping in shadows.

He leans against the bed, across from her, eases himself down to his knees opposite the side she inhabits. His elbows rest against the messy blankets, looking across the sizable bed, looking into shadows, searching for her, he sees eyes reflecting light, but that is all that comes from those shadows, perhaps the shape of a woman in a white nightgown, but even that he can't be sure. "Milady, it's Robin, it's only me. I will not hurt you."

A hand emerges from those shadows, reaching across the bed, her graceful hand, she grabs a fistful of blanket, "Thief?" she questions, sounding confused.

Relief washes over him, she recognizes him, she knows him, "Yes, it's me, milady, please," please what? What does Robin ask of her really? He does not know.

Her face follows her hand into the light. "Robin?" she questions again.

She looks worse than his memories had prepared him for. Sweating and discolored, a yellow tint to her skin, crawling up her neck, under her chin, and nearly to her cheeks are spider webs of black, black, black, the poison in her being.

"Regina, I'm here," he reaches out his hand to her, palm up, fingers reaching, pleading.

She scrambles up onto the bed, grabs at his hand before he can think what to do, she pulls on him, pulls at his arm, pulls and pulls until he scrambles onto the bed too, and then she flings them back into shadows, the pair landing with a painful thump onto the floor. "Robin, he's coming, we have to hide."

"Who? Who is coming?" he wheezes out, breath knocked from him.

Who could inflict such fear in her? His eyes adjust to the darkness, he can see her profile, as she stares and stares at the door from which he entered, the jut of her nose, her parted lips, her hand still clutching his, her other hand clutching at his wrist, holding him closely, holding him still against her, her hands are hot, burning hot against his skin. "The King!" she hisses at him, like he's being very dumb, turning to look at him quickly, before turning back.

He reaches with his free hand to push hair behind her ear, her hair is unkempt, unbrushed and gnarled with knots, she flinches from the touch, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Robin says, "Milady, your King is long dead. There is no need to fear."

She shakes her head wildly, "No, listen to me!" she seethes. His mouth claps shut. "He's coming, he comes every third night, listen to me, he's coming," she slams her eyes shut and shudders, Robin can feel her entire body shake from where it is pressed against his own.

Hallucinating, she is hallucinating this, "He's dead, Regina!" he tries to tell her, hand on her cheek, making her turn her face to him, "The King is dead, by your own order he is dead!"

Her brows constrict, she looks close to crying, her face is burning under the pads of his fingers, "I can hear his footsteps," she whispers, "they echo down the hall. Can you hear them?"

Rescuing her from this waking nightmare does not seem possible, not in this moment, not with her panic heaving her breath. "I will protect you," he tries instead, cradling her face, the spider webs have crawled up her cheeks.

Wide eyes are his only response from her, eyes that are dark, the poison has turned them black, the only light in them a reflection of the moon.

"I will protect you from him, from everything. I promise you, milady, Regina, I will protect you."

She lets out a sobbing breath, it turns into a deep, wet sounding cough at the end, she bends forward with the force of it. Another, softer, shake of her head forces his hand from her face, she looks back to the door, "You can't protect me from him," she tells him, consolatory almost. It sickens his stomach, that she feels the need to comfort him here.

"Regina," Robin says, she shushes him hurriedly, and he promptly lowers his voice for her, "can you remember how you came here?"

"In my chambers?" she says, questioning, her brows draw together, and she still does not look at him.

"Yes, here, now," Robin begs of her, wants her to look at him again, feels in his gut that she is less lost to her hallucinations when she is looking at him, but he has no solid way of knowing, and her eyes are intent on the door anyway, not flickering, those black on black eyes, affected by the poison, do not even blink.

"I was locked in," she says, but it has no conviction, is her hallucination a memory? A time when she was locked in her rooms to await the King? Yet she knows him, she is not lost completely to this induced craze.

"You are poisoned, milady," Robin whispers, shuffling so he can see her better, so she might see him out of the corner of her eye, "can you remember?"

She blinks at that, turns her head a fraction towards him, brows drawing even further together, those black spider webs crawling up her face, "Poisoned," she echoes, her head turns fully to look at him, "he poisoned me again?"

"What?" Robin demands, "Again?"

She shakes her head, face pinched in pain, she looks lost, but she talks, "They gave me the fire flower," she blinks, "he didn't want children, with-" her whole body shakes, some sort of spasm, "me, not with me, he gave me Arnilla in my wine," she shakes her head again, "he gave me too much, they gave me the fire flower to save-" another coughing fit overtakes her, something dark and wet falls past her lips, staining down her chin, is it blood or poison? Robin can't tell, she wipes it away with the sleeve of her nightgown, soaking the material and merely swiping the stain across her face.

Robin sinks a hand into her hair, anchors his hand against the nape of her neck, "That is in the past, milady," Robin tries to tell her, seething at the injustice of her life.

She does not hear him, confused and very suddenly shrinking back against the bed, "I need Snow," she says, any semblance of coherency, any shred of reality slithering into her mind suddenly and irrevocably gone, her nails dig into his arm, blood seeps from the shallow cuts that are too deep to call mere scratches.

Robin grimaces, but does not entertain removing her grip from him, "Snow White? Why?"

He's playing hide and seek with her sanity, her tenuous hold on it dimmer and dimmer the faster the poison crawls up her skin, he feels utterly defeated, and fears his only help to her will be that she will not have to die alone. Die, the word, shocks him utterly, his breath stuttering as she answers him-

"He won't take me from her, if she's with me he'll wait," she answers him, and that enrages him, he is desperate and now so angry he's near shaking with it, she speaks about herself as if she were nothing but a doll, to be handed from one person to another, the King would not take his daughter's favorite doll.

The knocks on the door shock them both, the sound propels her deeper into her nightmare, the loud THUD THUD THUD BANG flinchingly loud in what had been a near silent room, she releases him, her hands draw up to her face, up to cover her gasping mouth, over those stained lips. Fear is in her eyes, in the same instant the bed against which they huddle goes completely up in flames, bright white, searingly white flames, for a moment the room is all white and black, painful to the eye before Robin's bark of fright and him wrenching Regina away from the flames knocks her concentration off, the flames gone as soon as they had come, the bed left behind unharmed, her magic merely a show, or her magic so fast repairing the damage, Robin can't tell, the door flinging open at the sound of Regina's screech.

It's David.

Standing there once he enters, in some wide legged and heroic pose, he lets out a breath, looks about the room and marches to where Robin flung himself and Regina to the floor away from the white flames that burned nothing.

She starts screaming, panicked things, wordless, high and terrified, scrabbling back against the stone.

David stops, startled. His hands rising in supplication, his face showing fright and worry as she continues to fight to get away from him, he looks to Robin.

"It's David!" Robin screams at her, crawls after her retreating form, he grimaces when she strikes against the wall and huddles there, "Regina, please, it's David! LOOK AT HIM!"

Her screams, terrible things, they reverberate up and down Robin's spine, they splutter out, die with a whimper in her throat, she's shaking and shaking, coughing, blood or poison spluttering up and up, staining her chin, the front of her white linen, "Robin," she sobs out.

Robin crawls the rest of the way to her, doesn't think before he throws his arms around her, trying to sooth her, trying to stop her shaking, but nothing he does helps, "It's David," he says into her hair, and she nods, a jerking head up and down.

"I'm sorry," David says, still standing where he stopped, hands still raised. He looks properly abashed, but he is unthinking, Robin's well of forgiveness is beginning to run dry. "I didn't think-" David says.

"Do you have news?" Robin interrupts him, hoping against hope that he is here to give some antidote, here to cure her, to help her. But no help had come in the week Robin lay unconscious, a week she has been in this hell.

David shakes his head.

"Why are you here then?" Robin barks.

David looks startled again, regarding Robin with a pinched expression.

"I had to see her," David finally says.

"Why?" Robin asks incredulously, why would he need to see Regina, see her without his wife present, see her in the night when she is dying and in pain, poisoned and terrified, uncomprehending. How badly would this situation have gone if Robin had not been here, what could Regina, hallucinating, mistaking David for the King, what would she have done?

David lowers his hands, shrugs, "I failed her," David shakes his head, looks at Regina in Robin's arms, she's quiet, too quiet, still shaking, "I failed them both," he says so quietly, guilt heavy in him, a heaving thing, but Robin can't help the whisper of thought that runs through him, the thought that David's guilt is a selfish thing, the reason for such a notion hard for Robin to decipher but there all the same.

"Both?"

"Snow," David says, shaking his head.

Robin has only so little sympathy for David.

"Regina," Robin says, urging her to stand, helping her, "let's get up off the floor," he entreats, his leg throbbing as she leans most of her weight on him, lets him lead her towards the unburnt bed.

Then she stands stock still, Robin fumbles on his feet as she stops moving.

"Robin," she says softly, but there is something there in her voice, some note of understanding, Robin turns her, rough movement, because he hears her, her as she should be, in her voice, sanity, he can't let it go. She grabs at him, an insistent grip around his neck, though he doesn't think she knows she's even latched onto him, "the flower," she says to him, hot breath against his face, his face that she pulls and pulls closer to her own, those black on black eyes staring at him, "Robin, the flower," she repeats. Their foreheads touch, the whites of her eyes have been blackened by the poison, but the soulful brown iris remains unchanged.

He eases her fingers from him, entwines their fingers instead, "Regina, what do you mean?"

She curls over herself, sending him back half a step as she bends at at the waist, her hold on him loosening as she pants and finally lets him go, she coughs, coughs, deep pain filled sounds, wet, her mouth contorting, it rings through the stone, everyone in the castle must hear it, her eyes slammed shut, scrunching her whole face. She nearly falls to the ground, her legs collapsing under her.

David catches her, carries her to the bed as Robin limps after, she's fighting his hold, squirming, he nearly drops her twice, and putting her on the bed is more like dropping her.

"Regina!" Robin climbs upon the bed with her, wraps his arms around her and forces her up again, sitting straight and leaning heavily against him, her shoulder digging into his side, "what flower? Please," he begs her.

"the-" she stutters, her breath ragged all of a sudden, "bur- burning tree," she tries to take a deeper breath, but she can't, she gasps like she's drowning, "a blossom," pulling at Robin's clothes, the clothes that were her father's, "a fire flower, Robin, the pois-" a look of intense concentration furrows her brow, a sharp feeling of anger fills the air, Robin can feel it pass by him and knows it is hers, the emotion a visceral thing in the room with them before she flourishes her hand, letting him go to do so, and in her hand is some sort of tube? Clear, and sharp at one end, Robin looks from it to her and back again as she struggles to push it into his hands.

"What…" Robin says, accepting it from her and holding it gingerly, while holding more tightly to her as she gestures and tries to speak through gulping breath.

It is David that understands her, stepping up beside the bed, "You can't breathe?" he asks her.

She nods frantically, how long can she go without breath? Why is this happening now, the poison is- what kind of poison does all this, what kind of death is this-

David shakes his head, takes the tube from Robin, "Regina, this won't work, this isn't Grey's Anatomy-"

"-need," she gasps, and this is how long she can go without breath, she's growing limp against Robin, less desperate, lethargic suddenly. "magic," she says.

"What does she need?" Robin barks.

But David shakes his head again, looking down at the thing, "It won't work," he says.

"She's dying!" Robin screams.

"It doesn't work like this!" David screams back. "I"m not a doctor, I can't just go around-"

Regina gurgles, a liquid sound in her throat, David looks at her as her head collapses back against Robin's shoulder, her hands grotesquely still in her lap, no movement against the rumpled fabric of her nightgown skirt. "Jesus," David breathes, licking his lips, seconds that feel impossibly long, he stares at Regina's face, at the dark liquid that falls down her chin, her neck.

"Okay," David whispers, goading himself, he pushes at Regina, and at Robin, sprawling both their weakened forms down to lay flat, and then he stabs Regina with the thing she'd made.

Robin near flies into the same blood rage that had him killing and hacking a man, but David is speaking, speaking to him, "Turn her on her side," he orders, the words, incongruous with just what happened, they keep Robin from flying into a rage. David on his knees on the huge bed, holding the thing where he'd impaled it, holding it against Regina and keeping it steady as Robin helps David turn her, bewildered and afraid and very, very lost.

"What's happening?" Robin demands, watching with his head tilting as the clear tube fills with black, it is stabbed into her abdomen, stuck through clothing and avoiding ribs to puncture her left lung, or so Robin thinks, watching as thick black ooze fills the tube, dripping out the open end to stain the sheets.

"I don't even know, Robin," David says, he takes a deep breath and seems to be swallowing down an urge to retch.


	3. Chapter 3

The poison dripped from the tube for an hour. Robin held it in place against her abdomen; his hand barely shook as he held it. David left, took the information she had given them and rushed it to Belle, to Blue, to anyone who might know anything, David took the knowledge that Regina had been poisoned once before, and if Robin understood correctly, it was the fire flower that they gave her, a fire flower from a burning tree, gobblygook as far as Robin knew, but it had saved her once.

"Take it out," she whispers, heavy hand over Robin's around the clear tube, her fingers cold, the drip of the poison slowed to nothing, the image of it disturbing and forever in his nightmares, "gently," she says.

"Will you bleed?" Robin asks, just as quietly.

She shakes her head minutely, "it's magic," she says again, like a prayer.

There is no mark on her skin after he slides it out, a hole in her nightgown, but no mark on her skin.

"You can breathe?" Robin questions her, hand in her hair again, he can't seem to stop, now that he has felt the softness, her hair is like silk, as wonderful as ever imagining he'd indulged in. "Will the poison return?"

Robin can see that her breath comes easier now; she stays curled over on her side, "I'm okay, Daniel," she whispers before she falls asleep, out in moments, she doesn't see the surprise and confusion that twists Robin's face. The first time she has not recognized him. The mistake burns more than he thought it might, to be mistaken for some other kindness in her life. She is breathing easier, but still hallucinates, skin still spider webbed, the poison still there, and what a strange poison, to affect so much. The poison drained from her lungs stains the bed linen. A huge puddle of black ooze, it smells rancid.

"Robin?" the name is called tentatively from the door some time later, John's voice unused to whispering, but he does now.

"I'm here," Robin calls, relief washing over his features at John, he wanted news, but was terribly afraid to leave her alone. And when he called Granny's name, she must have gone, because she did not answer.

David is on a heroic quest already, it is still dark outside but he had saddled a horse and raced off, John tells him, Belle had found something in her books, something that fit with what Regina had told them, a fire flower, a cure all in desperate measures, the more John speaks the more Robin is hopeful. Regina, she has given them the answer. David left with the young wolf, with Belle, and two of the dwarves, a raggedy team, but they must succeed. They will succeed.

The ugly stain on the bed, the black ooze, smells more and more as time goes by, Robin has John pick her up, he would not have the strength to do it himself, and the three of them shamble down the hall, down the stairs, they lay her on her father's old bed.

She's sleeping, fidgets, squirms, mumbles in her sleep, but she sleeps.

"I'll bring breakfast," John says before he goes to his own bed, a hand clutched at Robin's shoulder, "come morning, Robin."

Robin sleeps too, propped up in a chair next to the bed, his hurt leg extended in front of him, he'd looked at it by candle light, looked at it for the first time. There is scaring, terrible, deep, ugly scaring, not just from the blade, but from whatever magic of hers must have sucked out the poison, the scarring is deep pink purple, the skin stretches in unnatural ways, it truly is a hideous sight. But he has a leg to walk on, he remembers her voice, 'he's not losing the leg,' she'd said vehemently, and whatever she had done to save his leg had doomed her.

Guilt and gratefulness fight inside him. He holds her hand in his own.

Dawn comes.

John brings a plate, enough for two, but Regina doesn't eat, hardly wakes really, she mumbles, her eyes closed. Robin helps her sit and holds a glass of water to her lips, entreating her to drink, she finishes the portion, but cannot eat.

The morning doesn't bring any new hope, any new news of David, Robin isn't even sure how long this trek is meant to take, the trek to the burning tree, it grows in cold and in ice, but it's only newly fall, chilly in the day, chillier in the night, but it is not cold, there is no snow, least of all ice is on the ground, how long will David and his group be?

Already it looks like it will take too long.

The day passes, she cannot eat.

* * *

She does not eat the next day, and when Robin holds the water glass to her lips it's as if she can't swallow, the liquid spills over her, she splutters it up over herself.

Robin kisses her brow and feels the fever there, he feels like he will cry.

* * *

She is still hallucinating, she calls him Daniel, she whimpers from phantom touches, she cries herself to sleep, she cries in her sleep.

"Henry?" she says, a whisper, her eyes barely open, her lips chapped. Meat melting off her bones.

Robin gulps, fingers weaving deeper into her hair, caressing each knot he finds in the gentlest way he can, she doesn't seem to notice. It's a painful conundrum, allow her to hope for her son's arrival, or remind her that the boy is gone?

Snow sits on the other side of the bed, looking haggard, with bags under her eyes, she'd told Robin more of David's quest, more of the burning tree, she wears the same heart broken and angry, and disbelieving face that she has been wearing for hours. Her jaw a tense thing, a solid line, her eyes welling with tears, but those green eyes simmer in so much rage, emotion, years of it, churning. She stares at the back of Regina's head, Regina is turned towards Robin.

"My baby," Regina breathes, eyes closing fully, her body curling further, knees drawing toward her chest, curling around where Robin is leaning across the bed to reach her, she moves as if to cuddle a child, but she finds nothing there, "Henry?" she calls again.

"He's coming," Robin chokes out, rubbing tears from his face with his free hand, an agitated swipe of his fingers over his cheeks, "Your boy is coming," he can't look at her as he lies to her, his gaze strays to her hair, watches as his fingers loose themselves at the crown of her head over and over, "he is coming as fast as he can," he tells her.

Snow makes a sound, then his name comes reprimandingly from her mouth, "Robin," she admonishes.

He glares at her, tears escaping his control, his mouth a grim line. She quiets with a shake of her head, eyes closing, mouth opening, the very picture of heartbreak.

"Thank you, Daniel" Regina whispers, Snow flinches every time the name leaves Regina's mouth, Regina's lips tip up, a sob of relief exits those chapped lips, those smiling lips, such a soft, pretty smile, it looks so peaceful, she looks at peace with just the knowledge that her son is coming for her, but it's all only lies, it's lies, and Robin sobs and tries to muffle the sound, crashing his palm against his mouth, covering half his face with his hand.

"Papa," a tiny voice from the door, the door opened only enough for Roland to squeeze through, Roland looks frightened. Robin had told John to take care of the boy, had told him to keep the boy away, the boy adores the Queen, he shouldn't see the ruin the poison is turning her into.

Robin keens out a sound, before he pulls himself together as much as he can, detangling himself from the Queen, turning from her aches, he straightens, moves the weight of his torso from the bed, "Roland, you shouldn't be here," Robin chides gently, but stern, this is nothing a boy should see, this cruelty isn't something Roland must learn for years yet.

Roland's big eyes widen further, he sinks into himself, his mouth screwing up, fighting tears.

Robin opens his arms, what else is there to do, the boy is already here, already upset, Roland runs into Robin's arms, his soft shoes making a soft scuffle sound against the stone floor before he reaches the rug around the bed and his footfalls are silent. He leaps into Robin's arms, sniffling, "Papa, I'm scared," he says into Robin's neck, snot leaking out his nose and onto Robin's neck and collar.

"Don't be scared, Roland, I'm right here," Robin shushes him, rocking him gently, fighting tears himself. I'm scared too, he almost says, but can't imagine that will help the child at all.

"Is Regina still sick? Sick like you were?" Roland questions, soothed by the warm hand Robin rubs in circles across his back, he turns his head away from Robin's neck, lays it instead on Robin's shoulder, gazing at the woman disfigured by poison, her face covered in spider webs of black. Roland does not seem frightened, not of Regina, not of what is happening to her.

"She is very sick," Robin nods, tucks his nose against Roland's curls for a moment, breathes in the smell of babyhood that still clings to Roland stubbornly, a smell unlike any Robin can describe, warm, comforting.

"I could hug her," Roland whispers, leaning away to look Robin in the face, "and tell her a story, like when I'm sick and you carry me. Uncle John wouldn't let me try when you were sick."

Robin smiles, the smile is sad, tears still cling in his eyes, but his boy is so sweet, he has to smile for him.

"She might like that," Robin concedes, wondering if she'll smell the baby smell of Roland's hair and be soothed the way Robin is, it's a baby she wants so desperately, a different baby, her baby, but this comfort is all Robin has, a small part of him wonders if she'll think this child hers in her delirium, he wonders if it is right to do this. "Be extra careful," Robin helps Roland gently climb over onto the bed, the boy on all fours on the soft surface.

"Robin," Snow says again, tone hardening, Robin shrugs when he looks to her, a helpless gesture, what do you want from me, he thinks, says it with his eyes, and she just shakes her head again. "Be very gentle, Roland," she says, watching like a hawk as the boy crawls to Regina, Regina sweating above the covers, poisoned, he crawls under her arm, snuggles against her chest and wraps his arms around her waist.

The boy has always been so free with his affection, with his hugs, but this isn't just hugs, this is snuggling and cuddling, something he's only ever done with Robin, right before bedtime, he doesn't look strange or awkward or unwilling as he lays against her, smushing his face against her chest.

She accepts the child into her embrace, her arm tightening, she mumbles and wakes a bit, groggy, unclear, looks with those black in black eyes, looks down at the dark head of curls cocooned against her breast, and not once does she mistake him for anyone but himself, "Roland," she sighs into his hair, "sweetheart," she murmurs, "it's only a nightmare, go back to sleep," she urges, still confused then, but she doesn't mistake Roland for her boy, and for that Robin finds himself immeasurably grateful and immeasurably sad.

"Do you wanna hear a story, Regina?" Roland whispers against her.

Her face doesn't move, a groan of indecision leaves her mouth, before she encourages him kindly, "of course I do," she says to him, breath soft, already almost back to sleeping.

"There was a mouse," Roland's story starts, a story that makes no sense, told by a four year old the thing is confusing and wandering, and nearly ten words in she is sleeping, loose and heavy, after more than twenty minutes, it's Robin whose eyelids are drooping, Roland's voice soothing and so incredibly comforting, the mouse has just fallen in love with a Queen when Roland starts to squirm, his voice lilting away.

Robin blinks his eyes open, sees Snow slumped over her side of the bed, head resting on her arms, in a position that will do no good to her already stressed spine, Robin's eyes drift from her, down to Roland. He's squirming.

He'll wake the Queen, Robin doesn't want that, he wants her comfortable, he rests a hand on Roland's back, leans over the bed again to reach, "My boy," he says softly, and Roland turns his head to look at him, his story left hanging, a frown on his tiny face.

"Papa, she's too hot," Roland complains, not whining, but sad, sounding as if he's failed.

"You want to get down?" Robin asks, moving forward, hoping that moving her arms from the child won't wake her.

"No," Roland declares, "no, I don't wanna leave her," he insists, but is still unhappy in her fever ridden embrace.

Exactly how Robin ended up on the bed, a buffer between the woman and the child, he can't recall when he wakes again several hours later. She's an inferno against his side as he blinks his eyes open and finds sunlight, weak light, streaming through the windows, it's a new day then, he turns to where Snow had been, and finds the chair empty. Regina is lightly panting while she still sleeps, sweat beading at her brow, staining the nightgown she wears at neck and back and arm pit, makes the gauzy material cling in ways that would incredibly distracting and tempting if she weren't dying.

But she is dying.

Robin begins to think of what life would be without her presence, he is not a fool, not blind, though she sleeps beside him, one of his arms around her, he can feel the despair already growing in him. She has been alternatingly politely indifferent or coldly vindictive since he has known her, but for the handful of times when that mask of hers has slipped down and Robin was able to see the woman he knew to be underneath, soft curves and soft voice, kind and vivacious, beautiful and witfully cutting with her quick words, a woman he feels very much for, never mind her outright refusal to admit anything in return.

"Please don't leave me," Robin asks her sleeping form, whispering, he lands a gentle kiss to her brow.

* * *

She is still alive when David comes back two days later, though alive is a perilous description, she'd been unwakable for those days, shitting and pissing in that bed, Robin and Snow and Granny cleaning her and the sheets with solemn expressions, as if it was a corpse they were readying for the funeral pyre.

The trumpets from the watch tower announce his arrival.

He is returned, returned victorious, a quest surely worth songs and tributes written across his weary features.

David's hands are burned, skin bright red and peeling, cupped in his burned hands is the fire flower, or what must be, it's petals licks of fire, orange with bright blue base, flickering and wisping out only to regrow, each petal on a different rhythm, it is a shifting thing of beauty, a blooming little fire that looks as solid as any more mundane bloom and yet somehow as volatile as any flame would. David wears a grimace on his face, his breathing deep and controlled, each breath grunted out, but his hold does not waver.

"Snow," David says as his wife grunts and stands, her hands held against her lower back, she climbs to her feet with much trouble, sleep still in her face, her eyes puffy and red.

David's voice a gasping entreaty for his wife, desperate eyes looking at her, not even glancing at Regina, or Robin, nothing in the room holds his gaze but Snow. "I got it," he says, extending his arms, a beaming grin growing on his face, boyish and proud, holding out the thing he cradles like a prize for her, "see? It's gonna be okay."

Snow White's hands cover her mouth, cover her smile, "Oh, David," she sighs.

"What do we do with the flower? How is it administered" Robin says, and both turn to look at him, their smiles shifting slowly. There is very little inflection in Robin's voice, he's too tired, tired, sitting beside Regina's sick bed, cradling her hand in his. He's tired. And so, so angry. Snow and David look to each other, Snow biting her bottom lip.

"How is it administered?" Robin asks again as he stands, his wounded leg barely aching now, it does more than hold his weight, it is as strong as it had ever been. He approaches the pair until he can look at the bloom of fire burning David's hands up close.

"It's," Snow hesitates, hands rubbing at her midsection, at the bump that grows there, "complicated," she finally decides on.

"Well, we must hurry," Robin turns away from the flame, turns to look back at Regina. She is dying.

"Robin," David grunts out, the pain his hands must be in written in his face, "you should check on your men, or Roland maybe?"

Robin shakes his head, eyebrows drawn together in confusion, he splutters, "Pardon?"

Snow lays a gentle hand on Robin's forearm, "Could you send someone to find Red and Belle on your way out, please?"

Belligerence looks good on no one, least of all Robin, but he can't stop the way his face shows his displeasure at being thrown out. "I am not leaving her, how dare you ask it," he says.

Snow and David share another look, infuriating in the way they can speak with no words, Snow's gentle hand drops away. "Robin, I promise you she would not want you here to see," again she falters, swallows shallowly, "to see what's going to happen next. Please go."

There's an argument against her wishes, he's sure he could worm his way into staying, but he takes a breath, stops and thinks, and knows in his heart of hearts that the woman laying feverish and dying on the bed, once she is of right mind, will be endlessly embarrassed by what Robin has already seen. "But," Robin mutters, the word escaping him, hanging there, nothing to add.

"I'll take care of her," Snow want to throw how well she'd cared for her in the past comes from the back of Robin's mind, followed just as quickly with the knowledge that Snow had not wielded the poisoned blade, Snow was not the one to stab Regina through, but Snow and David were both the one's that would not listen to Regina when she said 'there is no compromise with men like these'.

There is no time to waste, but it is not a waste when he asks again, "How is it administered?"

"Robin, please, trust us." Snow looks behind Robin's shoulder, at Regina on the bed, "I'm not letting her die."

He can see that for the truth, but how much agony will she endure to live? He doesn't ask.

He stumbles down the tower stairs, awash with horror at leaving, leaving her, but he is not abandoning her, she will be saved, but walking away is painful. He tells a passing dwarf to gather the women he'd been told to summon. Robin makes it to the hall the Merry Men have claimed, sees his men, their eyes following him, sympathy in their gazes.

"Is she gone then?" John inquires, concerned gaze on Robin.

"No," Robin says harshly, rubbing at the bridge of his nose, "no, David returned with the bloom and they sent me away." John nods his head, and watches without surprise as Robin stumbles back out of the hall with a quiet, "I'll return," thrown over his shoulder.

He's been sent away from the room, but he will not be far from her, he stumbles back up the stairs. He goes straight back up to the Queen's chamber doors and sits right on the stone, his back against the wall.

Screams come from the other side of the door, her screams, the urge to go to her, to comfort her, is strong, but Snow is perhaps right, that he should not see what's on the other side of the door.

* * *

"This isn't really what Snow meant," David grunts out as he slides to the floor next to Robin.

"I won't be moved," Robin declares, rubbing at his upper thigh, feeling the dent in his skin, the mark of her healing him, the mark of what damned her.

David sends him a smile, his burnt hands resting gingerly in his lap, he exudes exhaustion, "I'm not trying," he says with a shrug.

"Your hands need to be seen to," Robin says, observing with a grimace the ugly wounds adorning David's fingers and palms. David's hands shake, tremble, the skin is peeled away.

"I'm headed to a healer now."

"You seem to be resting against the wall actually," Robin says.

David snorts, "I just needed a minute."

They sit in silence.

Until, "You know she'll be alright?" David questions, eyebrows raised, turning his head to look at Robin, "She's stubborn, like a bull."

Robin's lips mouth moves in a mockery of a smile, "That I know true. But you hold too much faith."

David tilts his head, questioning.

Robin shrugs, rubs still at his thigh, thinking of the ugly scarring underneath, of how this injury will impact the rest of his days, "People die every day, though they wish desperately to stay. Her stubbornness, her strength of will, it means nothing if the body can no longer endure."

"Don't talk like that," David begins, "we got the flower," he holds up his damaged hands as proof of the statement.

Robin nods, looks away from David, looks away from David's blind faith, and while Robin holds hope, he does not hold unrealistic thoughts. He'd thought of a life without the Queen beside him, thought of it as she lay slumbering next to him, feverish and panting, thought of a life without her snapping at him, a life without her laugh goading him, thought of never seeing the rare softness of her beautiful brown eyes, and those thoughts are hard to unthink.

"Would you tell me what is happening beyond that door?" Robin asks.

David blows out a heavy breath. His answer only hesitant silence. Robin does not press. He will ask Belle later and she will tell him. Tell him why Regina was screaming so.

"You care for her," David hesitates again, observing Robin and then looking to the door.

"Of course I do," Robin answers immediately, defensive at David's skepticism, rankled by it. "But even if I did not, my kindness would be offered to her. It's not some heroic deed to treat her as I would others."

David is silent. His mouth snapping shut, looking surprised and offput.

"She deserves better than constant doubt and jabs at her intent," often has Robin seen David throw a snide remark the Queen's way, and he seems to be the only one that sees her look away hurt, before returning with her own snappish retort.

"I better go," David says not long after, awkwardly trying to stand without the aid of his hands, on trembling legs.

Robin watches him traverse down the hall until his gaze goes back to the door.

* * *

The three women, Red, Snow, and Belle, all file out of the room about an hour is blood on their hands. It stains their clothes, their expressions are grim.

Robin flings himself up, "What is this?" he cries, gesturing, not waiting for an answer as he tries to sidestep them and enter the room.

Red's hand on his arm stops him in his tracks, the strength in her slender fingers is bruising, "Hold on," she orders.

"Is she alright?" Robin asks, fighting weakly against the wolf, his desperate eyes find Snow, "Tell me."

Snow's smile is tired, her cheeks are puffy, her eyes bloodshot, tear tracks on her blotchy face, "She's alive," is her answer.

"Is she alright?!" Robin repeats, horror growing on his features as Red's bloodied hand tightens on him.

Belle steps up, smiling that very lovely and earnest smile, "Robin, she's going to be right as rain, I promise."

Robin blinks at that, takes in a breath, and sags against Red's grip.

"You're exhausted," Snow says, "we all are, let's all-"

"I need to see her," and he does, the need a wild and churning thing in his gut, their mere words will not appease him, he needs desperately to see her, to look upon her face and know that she is well.

Snow shares a look with Red, and then she nods, "Only for a minute, Robin, when she wakes up tomorrow she won't be happy to see you there. Look in and then go to your own room."

"She'll wake up though? Are you certain?"

"She will," Snow promises, she reaches out and touches his shoulder, "she'll gain back the weight she's lost, she'll regain her strength, she'll be alright."

Red lets her grip relax, and without it Robin finds himself staggering to the door, nodding absentmindedly at Snow. The women walk away, and Robin turns the knob.

The room is dark, candles blown out already. But he sees her on the bed. Her form still, laying on her side, in a clean shirt that was probably grabbed from her father's old closet, laying upon clean linen, and she looks clean too, the sweat and tears that covered her skin gone. He walks closer and closer, unable to tear his gaze from her, from her slowly rising and falling ribs. He can breath easily for the first time in ages.

"Oh thank god," he whispers, collapsing to his knees beside the bed, elbows on the surface of the blue blanket, his hands rubbing over his haggard face. He reaches out to touch her hand, her skin soft against his calloused fingers, "Oh thank god," he says again, relieved tears gathering in his eyes, her face is clear of the poison black that had spread and spread up her cheeks, her beautiful skin unmarred.

Why were the women covered in blood? But Robin is loathe to lift the blanket, an act that respects not an ounce of her privacy. What he can see is uncut, nor torn, there is no wound on her face or neck, nor where the nightgown has slipped down her shoulder, revealing soft smooth skin of clavicle and the hinting of cleavage. Her arms are similarly without wounds.

Magic, he thinks with a shake of her head, his hand returning to hold hers. Her screams, her blood, magic he thinks.

And somehow he falls asleep there, in this rich blue room, her father's old room, the room she'd placed him in and saved his life in, falls asleep against all his best intentions to follow Snow's instructions and his own right mind, slumping down towards the floor, his hand holding hers, his head leaning against the edge of the bed.

He thinks of it as an accident, but deep down he doesn't want her to wake alone.

* * *

"What are you doing?"

Robin grunts, aching everywhere, his ass fast asleep, he blinks his eyes open.

Streaming dawn is shining through the curtains of the windows, lighting her from behind. She looks like a dark crowned angel with the sun behind her.

She's staring at him. She hasn't moved her hand. She looks so thin, her hand is bones, her cheeks hollowed, but her eyes are clear, they are bright.

A heavy moment hangs between them, peaceful, he blinks and smiles, so incredibly glad to see her face. Sleeping, is his first choice to say, but she could have seen that for herself, the truth comes tumbling out of his mouth, out into the heavy air, "I'm trying to convince myself you are well."

Her frown pouts out her bottom lip, her brows drawing together, she still has yet to move her hand.

"Do you remember what happened?" Robin asks gently, and can't get his eyes to leave her mouth.

She nods her head slowly, "Bits and pieces," she answers, she hesitates, cheek rubbing against the pillow, "I remember you were there for me," she sounds so surprised.

"Of course I was," Robin says, his other hand comes up, and her hand meets it, both their hands entwined on the blue bedspread.

When she lets it, the intimacy is easy. When she lets it, kisses come easy as well.

She leans forward slowly, he strains towards her, kissing her, losing himself in her lips and her mouth, in her. Neither of them have the best breath at the moment, but, for him at least, there is no care for that. A gentle kiss, comfort and care and incredible warmth.

This is the fourth kiss they have shared, not that she would admit to even one. But Robin remembers each kiss with indescribable fondness, and remembers the resulting frustrating distance she forces between them far less fondly.

Their foreheads rest against each other as they part, their hands still entwined.

"Tell me you are well, please," Robin asks, observing the way her eyes blink shut, the way her gnarled hair is still lit from behind by the sun. She is truly so beautiful.

She bites that wonderful bottom lip of hers, sucks it into her mouth before letting it free, "I will be. And you? Your leg?"

"It holds weight," Robin answers. Frowning as he remembers what she did for him, and how it almost took her from him. "Promise me you will never do this again," he begs.

Her eyes open at that, she moves away from him, "What?"

He keeps a stubborn grip on her hands, though she makes no move to remove them, "You healed me, knowing the consequence to yourself, I have no doubt."

"Robin," she sighs, and does pull her hands from him then.

"You endangered your life when you saved mine in the battle, you must have known how dangerous that disgusting man was, and yet-"

"Roland needs y-"

"And what? No one needs you?" Robin feels his pulse growing hot, ire and frustration bleeding into his voice, "I need you, milady," he admits.

She shies away from him, from his words, the distance that grows after their infrequent kisses coming between them more swiftly than it ever has before.

Regina's face closes off, attempting to look blank, her Queenly facade does not match her bedhead hair and borrowed night shirt. "Please leave," she tells him.

There is no arguing with her, no discussion comes after she shies away.

Trying to stand comes with much pain, sleeping makes the appendage stiff apparently, a grunt and a stumble that has him clutching at the bed to stay upright, her facade breaks then, for a second, she reaches for his arm, soft hands on his skin, "You said it held weight," she accuses, glaring, "Let me see."

"When you have your strength back," Robin stumbles from her grip, tears himself from those soft hands. He leaves the room, as she'd wished, and hates himself for it, but he won't disregard her wishes, would never do that to her.

But she is cold to him the next day. Walled off and distant.

A velvet gown, deep red, her lips deep red, she stares at him blankly and spits _thief_ at him.

She shivers, standing there alone in her velvet gown at breakfast, still looking so thin, her dress does not fit the way it should.

How he wishes she would let him chase the chill away. Wishes she would let him wrap arms around her and warm her. The urge to touch her, to feel the softness of her, to feel her alive and warm beside him, it is growing more and more every day.

Growing more and more with every kiss they share.

* * *

Then there was Pride.


End file.
